


Counting Sheep

by fireandbones



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Boundary Issues, Breaking and Entering, Cuddling & Snuggling, Developing Relationship, Dry Humping, Feeding, Finger Sucking, First Kiss, First Time, Frottage, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Murder, Insomnia, Intimacy, M/M, Masturbation, Moonlight, Olfactophilia, Porn with Feelings, Post-Keene, Power Struggle, Rain, Retirement, Riding, Scars, Scents & Smells, Second Time, Size Difference, delayed sleep phase disorder, human bean juice, mild purple prose, mysophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 12:28:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12507416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireandbones/pseuds/fireandbones
Summary: Dan can't sleep at night. Rorschach gives him something else to do.





	Counting Sheep

Edging close to seven years of retirement, Dan still finds it almost impossible to sleep nights. Like his predecessor, he was a night owl long before he was _the_ Nite Owl. He was never meant to be one of those early birds, always better at catching criminals than worms, but he tries so hard, because if he can do this then maybe, _just maybe_ he can be normal. So he's done everything his doctor has told him to do. He's cut out caffeine after three pm, and gets as much exercise as he can without chasing muggers through the streets and – difficult as it was to stop – he doesn't even read before bedtime. It's no good, no good at all, he just can't sleep.  
  
Sometimes when he lies in bed staring at the ceiling and counting sheep, he swears there's a pattern there, swirling and morphing like liquid inside latex. Sometimes it's still there when he closes his eyes. Once, it looks like sheep jumping over a fence before it changes into something altogether more disturbing.

* * *

It's three am – more than twelve hours since Dan's last cup of coffee – and the sheep have been multiplying like bacteria in a Petri dish. He's started using scientific notation to keep track of them when he hears his front door being kicked in, an unmistakable sound, and freezes, stiff as a corpse in his bed.  
  
It's not the first visit Dan's had from his old partner, but it's the first visit with Dan actually here . It couldn't be a mistake – Dan always sticks to the same mind-numbing schedule, and he knows Rorschach has memorized it – so why is he here now, when he knows Dan's at home? What does he want?  
  
Dan listens to the clamor of pots and pans in the kitchen, arms at his sides, sweating into his sheets. That clamor stops just long enough for Rorschach to wolf down whatever abomination he's concocted with the scant supplies in Dan's fridge, the sound of metal against metal faintly audible.  
  
The damaged front door slams as shut as a damaged front door can, and Dan relaxes momentarily, then groans, thinking of the mess in the kitchen and the locksmith bills. Maybe if he closes his eyes, it'll all go away.  
  
Or maybe he'll just see the damn pattern again.

* * *

The first time Rorschach comes into Dan's room, he doesn't say anything, doesn't do anything, just walks in and stands at the foot of the bed. He stinks of stale body odor, of blood and garbage and faintly of piss. The blots on his mask move slowly, dark as nothingness and looking nothing like sheep jumping over a fence. It feels like he's there for an eternity, but the clock on Dan's nightstand shows the passage of time, green digits glowing in the darkness. Ten minutes, and then he leaves. The smell doesn't.  
  
Dan breathes in and reaches under the covers, trying to pretend his hand is smaller and stronger and belongs to someone else. Someone whose scent he's currently inhaling, someone who terrifies him and fascinates him, and whom he misses terribly. He didn't even know it until now. The longing hits him in the face like the uppercut that finalized the end of their partnership, and there's enough desire to take the edge off but he knows it won't last. He's rough with himself, as rough as he knows Rorschach would be. After he comes there's nothing except longing, but he can sleep now, even if it's not a restful sleep.  
  
In the morning, he tells himself it was all a dream, but the smell is still there, and his fridge is empty apart from a box of baking soda and a jar of mustard, and the kitchen looks like a war zone and his front door is practically gone. Maybe he'll try a different company this time. He's heard good things about the Gordian Knot Lock Co.

* * *

Dan's lying on his side facing the window, about to get his first decent night's sleep in god knows how long, when the door creaks and jolts him out of his nascent slumber. Someone wiry and half-clothed and rock hard – someone he he hadn't even realized was in his house – climbs into his bed and wraps around him, clinging like ivy.  
  
The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end when the intruder begins to hump him like a dog, nothing between them but a single layer of very worn cloth. Rorschach's silent until he comes not thirty seconds later, a short sharp cry in Dan's ear, issue hot and wet against his bare skin through threadbare fabric. Rorschach doesn't stick around, doesn't say a thing before he disappears back into the night, doesn't leave him with a sweet, gentle parting kiss lingering on his forehead, and Dan snorts out loud at the very thought of it.  
  
He jerks off staring at the ceiling, trying to pretend the formless chaos above looks like something sexual. His thoughts drift to the unknown condition of his front door, to an old memory of fucking a girlfriend, and finally, to an old memory of sparring with Rorschach. Only then does he achieve orgasm and, shortly after that, what can at best be described as a power nap without the power. Dreams of shadowy, untouchable figures that look not unlike his former partner torment him until the alarm goes off, an electronic cacophony ringing in his ears.

* * *

Rorschach's standing at the foot of the bed again, naked this time. Dan can't stop staring at the unkempt thicket of pubic hair, because he knows it must be as red as the stubble on his chin (and when exactly did he develop a thing for redheads, anyway?) but the small amount of light coming through his window only lets him see in monochrome. With the addition of glasses, he can make out as much detail as the relative darkness allows, and when he finally tears his eyes away from Rorschach's probable-but-as-yet-unconfirmed fire crotch, he notices the scars. So many scars, too many. So many wounds that haven't even healed yet, jagged stitches showing a practiced hand but a lack of care, an avant-garde tapestry embellishing a lean pale body that makes Dan's mouth water.  
  
He surprises himself when he grabs Rorschach and pulls him onto the bed, using his size to his advantage in order to flip his tiny ex-partner over and pin him down. The smaller man wriggles and squirms as Dan presses him into the mattress, waiting for him to stop moving before he lifts his bulk. He's so hard, has been this whole time. He recalls many terrible dates and failed casual encounters, and wonders…  
  
When he lines them up and takes them both in hand, as rough now as he's been with himself lately, Rorschach is almost submissive. No, _is_ submissive, whimpering softly under his breath, completely still until he comes, erratically bucking his hips and taking Dan with him. He allows Dan to clean him up afterward, which Dan does with a tender reverence, wondering how long it's been since a washcloth touched that pallid, grimy skin. He lets Dan hold him, lets him trace the scars with his fingertips, coos like a baby in his arms. Dan chokes up suddenly, realizing he must have been, forty-odd years ago, and there's no way that childhood was anything but horrifying.  
  
Dan doesn't even remember falling asleep. When he wakes, it's noon and his bed is empty. The glare of daylight hurts his eyes as he rubs the sleep away. The smell is on him now. It takes him twenty minutes of vigorous scrubbing in the shower to get rid of it, and when it's gone he misses it. He waits four hours for the locksmith, but at least he only needs a new lock this time, not a new door.

* * *

Every night now, every night for months, Dan's been waiting. He waits for a man who only comes around once or twice a week, showing up whenever the hell he feels like it, and he salivates like one of Pavlov's dogs at the first sign of the guy. If Rorschach's not here by daybreak, Dan knows he won't come at all and he can catch a few hours sleep. The bags under his eyes are worse than they've ever been before, but maybe that's just aging. Maybe.  
  
He's almost given up hope, but it's winter and the nights are long, and when he hears the door being kicked in he can't even be mad. His bedroom door creaks open and he's so happy because there's a body next to his, hot enough to make him forget how bitterly cold it's been, all bone and sinew against his doughy flesh.  
  
Dan starts out slow, with lots of lube, because he's getting sick of chafing even though Rorschach doesn't seem to care (or maybe thinks of it as a righteous punishment for deviance, but whatever). He moans the whole way through, a low, throaty sound that does more for Dan than any sound any woman has ever made, and now he's pretty sure he actually is gay after all.  
  
“If I give you a key,” Dan says afterward, “will you stop breaking in?”  
  
Rorschach murmurs something that sounds a lot like yes, a sleepy assent, and Dan realizes this is the closest thing to a conversation they've had since he quit.

* * *

Their first kiss is almost romantic, with the light of the full moon pushing past the city's neon noise and flooding the room with something purer. Rorschach is predictably clueless, chapped lips and crooked, rotten teeth colliding with Dan's mouth, but he's a quick study, letting Dan guide him wordlessly into something gentler, deeper and more passionate.  
  
He disappears after that night. Dan thinks the intimacy's scared him off, but he reads the paper and watches the news. Night after night, more bodies showing up, a crime syndicate being dismantled piece by piece, and he realizes exactly where he is on Rorschach's list of priorities. He's not sure how to feel, so he tries not to. He has a spotless kitchen and all his doors and windows are intact and that's something, right?

* * *

The next time Dan sees Rorschach, he's counting sheep again. They're only in the thousands now, but the night is young. The rain is so noisy that he doesn't even notice the intruder until he's in the doorway. Water drips off the brim of his weather-beaten old fedora as he stands there, silhouetted, like something out of a Film Noir flick that's taken a very dark turn and become more of a horror movie.  
  
He lets Dan strip him down to nothing but his mask, and even naked he reeks of blood. Dan doesn't have the heart to kick him out of bed, or the balls to ask him to take a shower, and anyway, he can't say he's turned off by it. Maybe it's his own, because there are scabs all over him, wounds that were probably never even treated slowly healing in spite of their neglect. He asks Dan to fuck him, and Dan wonders if it's an apology for his absence, or perhaps penance for darker sins.  
  
He's like a vice, unbearably tight, and hotter than a furnace inside. It takes a time and care, and about half a bottle of lube, but gradually he becomes looser around Dan's fingers.  
  
“Know what you're doing,” Rorschach grates, instinctively spreading his legs wider. “Done this before?”  
  
“No,” Dan replies truthfully, adding one more finger, “but I read a lot.”  
  
“Where? Dirty magazines?” Rorschach guesses. (It's an accurate guess, and Dan realizes he's probably seen them lying around.) He sounds scandalized, but Dan can tell it's an act.  
  
“You can burn them later if you like,” Dan says. “I don't need them any more.”  
  
He lets Rorschach be on top, trying to give him some control. The smaller man's strong thighs tremble as he starts to ride Dan. He's clumsy at first, becoming more and more swift until he's moving as gracefully as he has in any fight. If he's in pain, he doesn't show it, but when has he ever? As Dan grips those bony hips, gently thrusting and trying to find a rhythm with his erstwhile partner, he's startled by how _thin_ Rorschach is.  
  
“After this,” Dan asks, “will you let me feed you?”  
  
In response, Rorschach takes two of Dan's fingers and sucks them into his mouth. Dan isn't sure what that means, only that it's one of the hottest things that's ever happened to him.

* * *

When Dan picks up his Gazette from the news vendor in Times Square, there's a homeless man waiting in line behind him. Dan smells him before he sees him. He knows who it is right then, before he sees the ginger stubble and the shock of hair that matches it, before he notices the powerful little body concealed under dirty rags, before his eyes meet with a steely gaze he's never seen before but that couldn't possibly belong to anyone else.  
  
The effect is immediate and overwhelming. All he wants to do is take this familiar stranger into the nearest  alleyway and fuck his brains out behind a dumpster, but that would go against the unspoken rules they have. Instead, they pass one another, two out of millions in this towering, teeming city, and Dan goes home to wait.  
  
He doesn't have to wait long. Rorschach comes to his door before sundown, still in his filthy daytime garb, mask pulled from somewhere or other and a _dirty magazine_ in his hands, and this time, he fucking _knocks._

* * *

Rorschach is on his hands and knees, head bowed in what could be mistaken for submission, setting a punishing pace that Dan struggles to match. He's so loud Dan worries someone will hear, but the rain's so heavy tonight it could drown out the sound of Armageddon (and with the way things are headed at the moment, it might have to).  
  
Every time Dan fucks him it seems like there's a little bit more meat on his bones, and he feels a little more substantial every time Dan holds him. He'll never be fat, but he's not wasting away any more. The hearty meals are doing their job, then, and Dan his. He's given up on trying to sleep nights. He doesn't really care about normal these days, and he wonders why he did in the first place.  
  
“So, you got any more leads on this mask killer of yours?” Dan isn't sure if he really believes there's a mask killer out there, but it's certainly an intriguing theory and if there _is_ someone out there gunning for masks, he wants to know everything. After all, who knows if retirement means anything to this guy? There could be a target on his back.  
  
“Might have something.” Rorschach traces something on Dan's chest, a symmetrical pattern, the scrape of his long, dirty nails making Dan shudder with pleasure. “But…”  
  
“But what?” The pause has him hungry for more, stirs something inside him he thought was long gone.  
  
“Can't do this alone, Daniel.” Rorschach sits up and faces his partner. Dan can tell exactly where he's looking, and he's not sure when that happened. Regardless, he knows Rorschach's looking right into his eyes. “Going to need your help.”  
  
Dan thumbs the Comedian's badge, sucking in a deep breath of air that smells like blood and renewed possibilities. He locks eyes with his partner, feeling that steely gaze bore through latex and matching it with his own. “I'd be honored,” he says, and holds out his hand. “Partners?”  
  
After everything they've done together, a handshake shouldn't feel this fucking monumental, this miraculous, but it does. It's like being born again. Like he's on fire, and all the mask killers and all the wars in the world are just cases, problems to solve.  
  
“Partners,” Rorschach echoes.  
  
It's been a long time coming, but the Nite Owl/Rorschach team is finally back in business, and together, there's nothing they can't do.


End file.
